Editing Post-communism (section)

== Politics ==
{{Further|History of communism#Contemporary communism (1993–present)}}

The policies of most [[Communist party|communist parties]] in both the [[Eastern Bloc|Eastern]] and [[Western Bloc|Western]] Blocs had been governed by the example of the [[Soviet Union]]. In most countries in the Eastern Bloc, following the [[Revolutions of 1989]] and the fall of [[Communist state|communist-led governments]] that marked the end of the [[Cold War]], the communist parties split in two factions: a reformist [[Social democracy|social democratic]] party and a new less [[Reformism|reformist]]-oriented communist party. The newly created social democratic parties were generally larger and more powerful than the remaining communist parties—only in [[Belarus]], [[Ukraine]], [[Kazakhstan]], [[Moldova]], [[Russia]], and [[Tajikistan]] the communist parties remained a significant force.<ref>David Ost, "The politics of interest in post-communist East Europe." ''Theory and Society'' 22.4 (1993): 453-485. [https://ceses.cuni.cz/CESES-118-version1-5_1_2_OST_Interest_groups_in_CEE.pdf online] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210515201347/https://ceses.cuni.cz/CESES-118-version1-5_1_2_OST_Interest_groups_in_CEE.pdf |date=2021-05-15 }}</ref><ref>Gregory Gleason, ''Markets and politics in Central Asia'' (Routledge, 2003).</ref>

In the Western Bloc, many of the self-styled communist parties reacted by changing their policies to a social democratic and democratic socialist course. In countries such as [[Japan]], [[Italy]] and [[German reunification|reunited Germany]], post-communism is marked by the increased influence of their existing social democrats. The [[Anti-Sovietism|anti-Soviet]] communist parties in the Western Bloc (e.g. the [[Trotskyism|Trotskyist]] parties) who felt that the [[dissolution of the Soviet Union]] vindicated their views and [[Predictions of the collapse of the Soviet Union|predictions]] did not particularly prosper from it—in fact, some became less radical as well.